I originally posted a version of this list in early 2012. Mostly because I like making lists. There was no real methodology to it. I looked back at it at some point in the past four months and saw it skewed heavily toward personal preference. The performances I liked the best went to the top, and the performances I thought were terrible winners went straight to the bottom.
Since the Oscar Quest, Version 2 that I’ve been doing, I noticed the point of it was more to reflect what my thoughts were now five years later from the completion/posting of all the original articles. I tried to stay away from redoing everything I did the first time, because a lot of it felt like it begat negativity on my part. I really don’t want to shit on things now so much as I’d want to openly discuss what is or isn’t a good choice historically.
Because that’s now where I’m at, I think redoing these lists is something I can get away with. If only to give myself a marker for where my head is at now.
I’m not putting any stock into these whatsoever. I don’t even really want to make these easily findable for people, though I guess I should, if only to track changes over the years. I was going to write up actual opinions for each one, justifying its position, but that’s a fool’s errand. That’s for people looking for extra clicks and people writing in the comments. I don’t want that. This is purely for me.
The first time I wrote this up, I specified that the rankings were not me attempting to make a list for everyone to follow. It was just my favorites. This time, I think what I ended up doing was trying to factor in everything into the decision. How iconic the performance/film is, how good of a choice it was in its year (extremely strong choices get slight bumps, and extremely weak choices get slight deductions), and also how I feel about them.
So here’s where my head is at now on all the Best Picture winners:
1. Gone With the Wind
2. All Quiet on the Western Front
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4. The Godfather
5. Casablanca
6. The Best Years of Our Lives
7. West Side Story
8. Schindler’s List
9. On the Waterfront
10. Ben-Hur
11. The Godfather Part II
12. Titanic
13. The Apartment
14. It Happened One Night
15. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
16. Wings
17. All About Eve
18. From Here to Eternity
19. The Sound of Music
20. The Bridge on the River Kwai
21. Unforgiven
22. The Lord of the Rings The Return of the King
23. Rocky
24. In the Heat of the Night
25. The Silence of the Lambs
26. The French Connection
27. Amadeus
28. 12 Years a Slave
29. How Green Was My Valley
30. Annie Hall
31. No Country for Old Men
32. Forrest Gump
33. The Hurt Locker
34. Gandhi
35. The Sting
36. Platoon
37. Mutiny on the Bounty
38. The Deer Hunter
39. Patton
40. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
41. Mrs. Miniver
42. Moonlight
43. Midnight Cowboy
44. Gladiator
45. The Last Emperor
46. The Lost Weekend
47. Kramer vs. Kramer
48. Spotlight
49. Terms of Endearment
50. Marty
51. The King’s Speech
52. The Departed
53. Shakespeare in Love
54. My Fair Lady
55. Dances with Wolves
56. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
57. American Beauty
58. Gentleman’s Agreement
59. Slumdog Millionaire
60. Braveheart
61. Around the World in 80 Days
62. A Man for All Seasons
63. The Artist
64. Out of Africa
65. Going My Way
66. Argo
67. The Great Ziegfeld
68. Grand Hotel
69. Hamlet
70. The English Patient
71. Rain Man
72. Ordinary People
73. Rebecca
74. Chariots of Fire
75. An American in Paris
76. You Can’t Take It With You
77. All the King’s Men
78. Chicago
79. Gigi
80. Driving Miss Daisy
81. Million Dollar Baby
82. Oliver!
83. Cimarron
84. The Greatest Show on Earth
85. Tom Jones
86. A Beautiful Mind
87. The Broadway Melody
88. Cavalcade
89. The Life of Emile Zola
90. Crash
